


why truth when you could lie instead?

by xxBurningxx



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, Fluff, I wanna give my good beans a good ending but sometimes it's hard, M/M, and unrelated one-shots, it's exclusively oumasai, oumasai, saiouma, this is a collection of drabbles, who knows what else, with no consistent themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2019-10-08 23:26:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17395727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxBurningxx/pseuds/xxBurningxx
Summary: "Saihara-chan, what would you do if I kissed you right now?"His eyes are the color of ghosts, infinitesimal little spirits dancing along the horizon. Lethal things, sneaking up, trying to swallow him."Wh-what kind of question is that?!"---A collection of drabbles, one-shots, and similar unrelated snippets, all of which are exclusively Oumasai-centric. AKA my brain vomit and vent fics whenever I can't figure out how to write the stories I actually want to write.





	1. ethereal

**Author's Note:**

> Right. So like the tags/summary say, this isn't anything special. Just where I plan to dump whatever brief one-shots I manage to spit out in a desperate attempt to clear up bad cases of writer's block. No consistent themes but if there's anything important to know I'll try to put it in the notes before the chapter. Also I've only ever played the localized version of the games but I try to defer to the Japanese spellings but I kinda suck at that so I apologize for any inconsistencies :');;

"Saihara-chan, what would you do if I kissed you right now?"

His eyes are the color of ghosts, infinitesimal little spirits dancing along the horizon. Lethal things, sneaking up, trying to swallow him.

"Wh-what kind of question is that?!"

"Just curious! Awh, are you blushing? Don't worry, I wouldn't do something like that. I actually think Saihara-chan is stinky and ugly!"

"Ouma-kun..."

Sometimes it's hard. Not drowning in the electrified aura that douses his personal space. Not suffocating under the weight of it all.

"Although it _woooould_ be pretty funny, don't'cha think? Ooooh, I'm sure Momota would get _so mad!_ Hey, Saihara-chan, what do ya say? Let's make out and take a bunch of pictures and then scatter them all over the school!"

He never thought he'd actually do it. Not at the time, not in that singular blip of fractured existence. But later, much, much later— _it's not his fault that mere days feel like eternities—_ beneath the artificial glare of faux stars.

"Mmph—! Ouma? W-what are you—?"

He sees pallid hands retreat to tucked away pockets, a gaze flickering into nothingness, away, away, swallowed up by the distance. "Sorry. Guess I got carried away, huh?"

He's so far away. Light years. And yet Shuuichi could reach out and touch him, if he wanted to.

"No... it's. A-ah. Well."

His voice wavers like deity-disrupted tidal waves. Can Ouma hear the unstable frequencies simmering under the surface of his syllables? Surely.

"Maybe I just craved the touch of my beloved detective."

"H-huh—?"

"But of course that's a lie. I've never been touched by a human before in my life! As if I'd start pining for something like that now," he scoffs, spits the words out like they're toxic, onto the earth for them to sizzle like blood on a hotplate.

"Ouma-kun... can we talk about this?"

"There's nothing to talk about, silly."

When did his limbs manifest into spirits of their own, with garbled wills operating outside of his best interest? Shuuichi sees his own hand taking flight, fluttering, landing on a thin shoulder.

_Oh._

Maybe it's the crackled glass that looks back at him that makes his stomach twinge. It's brief, fleeting. But Shuuichi's the SHSL Detective. It's the sort of detail that roots itself in the deepest crevasses of his psyche, the instances that blossom and thrive until, oh look. His arms are doing things without the consent of said psyche.

"Wow! Who would have guessed my beloved detective was so horny for me after all?"

"Ouma, do you ever shut up?" It's uncharacteristic, but then again, he's not controlling his own body anymore. His corporeal form feels sacrificed to the gods already. A side effect of the times, perhaps.

"Hmm, let me think. _No._ Although I can think of ways you could stop me, nishishi..."

"Right."

"That's an invitation, y'know."

"Uh huh."

"Ugh! You're no fun, Saihara-chan! So boring! Get out of my sight, I never want to see you ever again!"

The detective just looks at him. Him and his phantasmic irises that barely catch the fake rays of light but somehow reflect them infinitely nonetheless. Him and his meager frame that takes up the space of entire rooms with the boisterous tongue he wields. Ouma Kokichi, and his army of syntax blankets that protect him from the world, the very ones that Shuuichi spends his idle thoughts dissecting.

"Saihara-chan? You're staring."

"O-oh, sorry."

"Mm. It's alright. Haven't I told you? I like it when your eyes are on me."

"Huh? When did you ever tell me that?"

The imp just snickers, an airy sound stolen away by a non-existent wind. 

"Ouma-kun, can I ask you something?"

"Sure. But only if you do a handstand for five whole minutes!"

"Wh-what? You know I can't do something like that!"

"Ugh, why are you so weak? Lame! Okay fine, only sixteen minutes, then. Sound good?"

"Wh—wait, that's worse!"

Maybe it's just the conglomeration of smaller moments like this. A tango of two souls in a cage match, pit against an invincible enemy.

Or maybe it's just that Ouma's lips were softer than he thought they would be, and something about the twist and tie of their exchanged diction makes him feel alright, even if it's a momentary blip in the obscene progression of time.

"Ouma, can you promise me something?"

"Mm... nope!"

"Don't die."

It's just the hum of nothing playing a backdrop in their eardrums, a hollow sound that ensconces the detective.

Maybe the SHSL Supreme Leader hears it too.

"Silly Saihara-chan. I don't make promises I can't keep, and that's the truth."


	2. mine mine mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dear Momota,
> 
> If you ever look at my beloved detective with your nasty eyes again, I'll rip them straight out of your head! :) 
> 
> Sincerely,  
> Ouma Kokichi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ouma's probably really, really OOC here... but I think we all need a little more dark/possessive Ouma in our lives, so hopefully it's okay.

_ Fucking Momota... Luminary of Bullshit, more accurately. Bullshit and idiocy. Stupid, stupid, stupid! How dare he...  _

He's not having a good day. Soured from the moment he crossed the threshold into the dining room. 

There are storm clouds brewing beneath the twine of his irises, hissing, crackling. 

_ He thinks Saihara is his little puppy dog, does he? _

His blood rarely boils like this, frothy and unsettled; a cocktail of writhing emotion typically reserved for thoughts of murderers. 

Those, and well. Liars. 

He finds an intangible cord yanking him in the direction of the dorms, something nestled deep in his intuitive gut. That same space that churns out snarling predators that manifest as casually tossed phrases. 

Storm clouds? More like a maelstrom.

He's the SHSL Supreme Leader for a reason. Respect doesn't grow off trees, after all.

_ Knock, knock, knock! _

The door cracks open— 

_ so careless, so trusting, why is everyone so  _ fucking  _ stupid today, even my beloved det—  _

"O-Ouma-kun?" 

"Saihara-chan!" he beams, but the rays only sparkle for a nanosecond. 

"O-oh, sorry, I was just looking over some notes, I'm coming to breakfa—"

Maybe less than that, because lightning is consuming him quicker than the flames can be doused. His hand pressed against a chest, the startled yelp it elicits. 

"Ouma—!?"

He kicks the door closed behind him, shoving the taller boy against the wall. It probably hurts the detective. It may leave a bruise. He barely finds it in himself to care. 

— _ mine, mine, mine, no one takes from Ouma Kokichi—  _

His lips crash against the navy-haired boy's like tidal waves, a collision of universes. In the back of his thoughts he acknowledges the muffled cry of alarm, and his own inner cackling spirit is doing a little tap dance somewhere in the depths of his chest. For a moment he gets tripped up over how soft Saihara's lips are, but then his mind flickers to  _ that fucking wannabe astronaut _ and his hand worms its way into the detective's hair. 

He tastes like cinnamon, like gentle autumnal evenings where things are better and no one has to worry about  _ getting murdered.  _

"O-Ouma, what are y—" 

The thief lets him catch his breath for only a moment, only a fraction of a second before he's pouncing again. He can't help it. His tongue flickers across the detective's but doesn't stop to ask for permission; Saihara doesn't stop him. Instead he's drowning, drowning in taut half-thoughts and a myriad of ideas all clambering over one another. 

— _ everyone will know— _

Ouma's mouth dips down, latching onto the lifeline that flutters beneath the paper-thin skin of his detective. 

— _ Saihara isn't your sidekick, Momota—  _

The hiss that slips out of Saihara's mouth is like sweet candy, sweeter than the grape Panta he drinks for breakfast instead of real food.

And then Ouma is done playing. The unbridled fury dissipates into airy satisfaction, maybe because  _ holy shit that hickey's way bigger than I meant for it to—  _

Oh. Saihara's brain must be catching up, because his face is the color of crime scenes. 

"O-o-ouma—! Wh—! I, what?" 

"Awh, did I break my detective?" He looks at his nails, feigning disinterest, even though he can hear the distant ocean-crashing sound of blood in his ears, a side effect of his heart having a miniature fit of its own. 

Somehow, the saturation of Saihara's face intensifies, and he's still tripping over his own syllables.

"Hey, Saihara-chan, do me a favor?" 

"H-huh?"

"Tell that wannabe astronaut to show you a little respect, 'kay? He acts like he owns you. It's annoying." 

— _ mine, mine, mine—  _

"Wh-what...?"

"Anyway, this was fun! Be sure to entertain me again next time, alright? Bye!"

And like that, the imp disappears, like a spectre caught by the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I appreciate the kudos/comments. Again, feel free to request (and again, no promises, but still). Have a great one, y'all.


	3. okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saihara pays Ouma a visit after he hasn't showed up to class for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to another installment of I Use Too Many Em Dashes™.
> 
> Note: This is a high school/college AU (I think) but it's not really relevant because this turned out to be more of a vague character study than anything.

He hears little voices ringing around his head, bouncing off the walls and wrecking all his train stations with their fleeting thought carts. But they're just small ones, so it's not serious. Cognitive dissonance? Ouma Kokichi doesn't even know what that means. Whispers, really. And it's not perpetual, persistent, painful. Not at all.

So he doesn't really understand why Saihara Shuuichi is at his doorstep, with rain beading up along the creases of his outfit—just on the cusp of shattering, sinking into the fabric—looking at him the way he is. Almost as if concern has been etched into the soft molds of his expression. Does God like to sculpt? Or maybe it's gods, plural, with a lowercase g. Maybe it's a big party, a conglomeration of deities that came together to craft the perfect face for the per—

"O-ouma, hi..."

 _Ding, ding, ding!_ The boy in question tilts his head. Perfect twenty degree angle. He wonders if Saihara can tell that it's precise, measured, a big ruse. He always was awfully observant.

"Ouma?"

"Saihara-chan! What are you doing out this late? Don't tell me!" He gasps. It's a loud sound and it drowns out all those little voices, for a moment. "You like playing in the rain at midnight too! I had no idea we had so much in common, since that's my favorite pastime! Or maybe... maybe you came to proposition me? Have you been binging romcoms aga—?"

"Ouma."

He doesn't like tightropes, or trying to walk along them. Especially when there are razors glued to the rope and the closest thing to a net to catch his corpse are protruding stalagmites because the scene is set in Hell.

He hates liars, but maybe he hates Saihara Shuuichi more.

"Ouma, you haven't been to class for fifteen days."

And oh, those words melt like sweet acid on his taste buds, seeping into his nerves. So he invites him in, like any gentleman would.

"You aren't speaking. This isn't like you."

_But here you are, in my apartment anyway._

He thinks people are too trusting. There's not a lot to be gained in that. Candor, cannibalism, it's all the same. That glimmer in Saihara's eyes that indicate the turning and churning of gears and cogs but glisten like headlight-struck does nonetheless. Man, he could swim in those eyes. If only he could wrestle with something resembling confidence, anything to affirm his ability to not drown.

Because the truth is a lot like an encirclement of sharks.

"Well you see, my therapist said I should try to limit myself to three hundred words a day. What makes you think I should be wasting them on you?"

"A-are you? Seeing a therapist...?"

"Of course, silly! It's much easier to just hire someone to figure out my problems for me!"

Saihara hums for a moment, a minute serenade that's almost as quiet as the voices. A shame that small sounds are the loudest of all. So loud that Ouma forgets about the sharks.

"... You're not seeing anyone, are you?"

Then again, maybe lies are like blood.

That would make Ouma Kokichi nothing better than bait.

"I'm surprised Saihara-chan bothered to come see little ol' me." He plops down on the sleeper sofa, a measured two feet away from the other boy. He looks at the splotches where the droplets of water have long since turned to barely discernible dark patches. The forecast, with its grainy flickering octaves, said it's supposed to rain all week.

"I got worried."

He's not sinking his fangs in, ripping limbs from flesh, devouring him whole, perhaps not. But he smells the metallic ichor no less. Ouma sees it in the taut fiber of Saihara's irises, strained and trained on him, the target! The prey.

Who came up with that rule anyway? That Ouma Kokichi always has to be the one on top?

What a dumb game.

"Everyone acted like it was a good thing. That you've been absent, I mean."

At least, it's dumb when he's losing.

"And I guess it made me... worry."

"So you came here at—" a snake-strike glance snatches up the numbers ticking on the wall, "12:23 AM, for what? A welfare check?" Ouma scoffs, studies the vastly fascinating image of his cuticles, the pink bordering pallid white; his hands always were pretty effeminate.

"I mean—”

"Leave it to the real detectives, Saihara-chan."

"H-h—”

He really is something of a viper, the way his skeleton melts into mercury-esque liquid, pronounced fluidity dominating the movements as Ouma practically teleports over Saihara. Hands on either side of his head, pressed into the faux leather of the couch. "C'mon, get on with it then. But I'm not cheap y'know!"

_He's shaking._

"O-ouma!.."

It's difficult, pinning down emotions scurrying around in the lowest cavity of his chest like scrambling rodents with their tails severed clean off. What, pray tell, is the great and mighty Ouma Kokichi thinking in that singular nanosecond—that unimportant flicker of existence occurring in one moment and one measly moment only—as molten lemon-tinted eyes stare up at him, wide and electrified?

It's a simple sentiment, really. Something any peasant could conjure up and spit on the curb with indignant scorn: _what the hell is wrong with you?_

To say that the seconds clocking him over the head—systematic and frigid—are agonizing would be an understatement.

"Kidding, kidding," he chirps, swinging a leg over as he twists around and falls back on the cushioning once more. Lilac irises boring dirks into the slightly cracked wallpaper ahead, heart stuttering out a makeshift tapdance, Ouma doesn't even look over at the jumpy bundle of nerves that is Saihara Shuuichi as he straightens up like a scolded child and shifts in the same spot at least sixteen times within the span of three breaths.

"Wh-what—"

"—the hell's wrong with me?" he offers the ending the sentence complimentary, totally free of charge. The syllables echo and swell inside his head, the recurring theme a constant avian beast perched on his shoulders.

"That's not what I was going to say."

Oh.

So he _is_ playing the game now. Maybe he _is_ going to drain Ouma of his life.

At least that's sort of what it feels like every time the raven-haired boy opens his mouth. Maybe that's why Ouma stopped going to class in the first place. Because if they aren't wearing masks composed of irritation and loathing, he's not winning. And everyone in class sucks at playing chess, save for one _incredible, irresistible, instinctually ineffable_ Saihara-chan.

Wow. He's in deep, huh? Ankles poking out of wet concrete as his lungs fill with leaded poison and breathing becomes a long-lost notion.

"I don't know what I was going to say..."

"Just go."

"I can never read you."

Ouma smiles. "Have you tried?"

"Of course. Every day. But every time I think I've figured something out, or suspect you've given me a clue, you turn around and flip everything on its head."

A laugh. "I guess Akamatsu-chan wasn't kidding around when she said you've got a constant boner for me, huh?"

It's amazing, how the words roll off his back this time. Maybe straddling someone for half a minute'll do that to a person.

"And I guess I came here tonight because it seemed important."

Ouma yawns, even though his trachea vaguely feels like it's on fire and he's not entirely sure why that would be.

"It seemed... important that you know that I'm here? Like... if you need anything."

Now he doesn't dare open his mouth, because he's worried an inferno will leap out of his throat. Or maybe that's just what it feels like trying to swallow his pride.

Saihara keeps looking like he wants to elaborate but his confidence has shriveled up and absconded along with his gaze.

When Ouma Kokichi finally feels like he can speak without breaking, he just says, "Okay."

And really, it's all that needs to be said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heya, thanks for reading! I'm pleased with this one, even if it's not very romantic.


	4. man this echo chamber's getting loud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Been sitting on this one for a while but I keep putting off publishing it. But I started replaying V3 soooo. And I actually think this was one of the first things I wrote for the series. 
> 
> This one's first person POV from Saihara's view, and canonverse-ish, post Ouma's trial ofc (so, spoilers for that obviously).

His fingers tapdance an intricate little performance on my wrist, just beyond the border of my sleeve. Sometimes he does this. Not this in particular—this current flurry of cold digits over my skin for the sake of distracting my mind—no, but trailing after me into my dreams. He surfs in on a tidal wave of crimson, crashing over me with bloodstained memories, vacant screams, twitching memories. Things I want to eradicate from my subconscious. 

"Nishishi... Saihara-chan, you know the harder you try to forget, the easier it is for me to haunt you!"

I hate how I can see the demons crawling around in the depths of his irises. That sinister smile swallows me up. 

"You wouldn't really want to abandon me, would you?" His hands tighten around my wrist; suddenly he's gripping my hand in both of his, like I'm some kind of lifeline. "Don't tell me my beloved detective really wants to get rid of me?" He's bawling now. I watch liquid lies cascade down his cheeks in a torrent of wailing and nonsensical cries I can't make out, and I know it's all a facade, but it sends a phantom ache darting through my chest anyway. 

"Please stop," I mumble. I'm not sure who I'm talking to. I think a part of me is addressing the universe that forms my current reality; this dream, where all my shattering memories and worst fears stalk me in the shadows. But I guess I'm speaking to Ouma Kokichi too.

Because even if this is little more than a nightmare, a part of me wants to cling onto the purple-haired boy. 

Maybe I'm making a face or something, or Ouma is just that good at reading my thoughts, but he suddenly snatches his hand away, as though he were a fairy and I turned out to be an iron statue. "Was Saihara-chan just having dirty thoughts about me?"

"W-what?" 

"Just kidding! I'm flattered my beloved detective is such a pervert!"  
  
"I wasn't—"

"Saihara-kun?" 

I jump and my favorite ghost turns to dust, incorporeal particles becoming spirits themselves. Gone. And all it took was one fractured utterance, one blink, _just like that_ — 

"You're blushing." Irises the color of rusted blood are boring into me when the universe takes shape again, picking apart me and the infinitude of garbled thoughts tromping around my head space. Am I? It's true. Of course it is. Of course my cheeks are humming with the buzz of infernos dancing under my skin. Of course he'd be able to do that to me. And it's like I can hear the receding diminuendo of his chirping laugh in the back of my eardrums, ringing, bouncing around the cavernous inner workings of every syllable occurring in both my external and internal realm. 

I'm glad it's just Harukawa here. Because she just stares at me for another agonizing and likely calculated four seconds but then it's as if her capacity to care dissipates, just like Ouma does. 

So I don't have to answer any questions I don't know how to. 

If she heard me speaking, though. If she caught the tail end of my conversation with a soul that no longer exists outside of the fragmented stuttering of my thoughts. Well, then. I may have to mentally prepare myself for war, for an onslaught of inquiries from Momota that I definitely won't be able to worm my way out of. 

"That's 'cause you're a shitty liar, Saihara-chan!"

And he's back. 

"Y'know, if it were me, I'd just lie and tell him I was diagnosed with an incurable mind-altering disease."

I look around, eyes flickering back and forth like 3 AM television static. I'm not mendacious like he is, sure— 

"I heard that!"

—but I am observant. 

"But that's a lie too." 

I spin on my heels, try not to stumble into a pool of my own furious creation. "Do you ever stop?" There's an underlying question there, too, rooted in the marrow of my bones. _Does this nightmare ever end?_

I glance over and find him cocking his head, almost as though he's tasting the question on his tongue, chewing it up for analysis. He grabs my wrist again. I try not to think about how frigid the pads of his fingertips are as they press into the delicate tendons there, sidling up to the artery that jumps and stutters beneath his touch. 

I don't know what's happening. 

Maybe that's the only truth I can offer, these days. 

I just know that Ouma Kokichi haunts me, and I'd be a bigger liar than he is if I said I wanted his apparition to stop appearing in the peripherals of my reality, as it currently stands. So I don't say anything as we walk down the halls and his fingers _tap, tap, tap_ their perpetual performance along the surface of my skin. 

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway, thanks for reading. Hope at least a few people will be able to enjoy my brain spit haha. Also feel free to drop requests in the comments? Can't promise I'll actually do anything, but sometimes it's nice already having ideas lain out for me lololol


End file.
